National Broadcast Policy soon: Government says OTT platforms will not be strangulated by regulation

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is in the process of coming up with a Draft National Broadcast Policy and consultations on the AVGC Policy too will be held very soon, said Neerja Shekar, Additional Secretary (Broadcasting) & CVO, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in her address at 9th CII BIG Picture Summit on Thursday.

Media and entertainment is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy with potential to contribute significantly in India's move towards becoming a $5 trillion economy, Shekar said that all the forms of media are growing simultaneously not necessarily at the cost of the others because the reach of different forms of media can be region specific or platform specific. "The consumers are looking at all these platforms separately for the kind of content and the kind of entertainment that they are catering. TV, print, radio, films, and digital all have been moving together," she added.

Shekar added "They have been trying to support the broadcasting by getting it declared as infrastructure. But we have not been able to succeed because the few times that we went to the finance ministry they were not convinced with our arguments.

S K Gupta, Secretary, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, said that today India is passing through a "digital revolution era". 

"India has 750 billion broadband subscribers and 550 million smartphone subscribers, their smartphone adoption rate is 30% year on year, meaning there are a large number of people who will have a smartphone and can see TV or other content on the phone."

Gupta also pointed out that changing consumer behaviour has opened new challenges for the industry. "Productivity of individuals is increasing and therefore available time for entertainment is reducing. Due to this, individuals want good quality time with entertainment.

Gupta said that India is at the stage of adoption of the 5G technology. "So, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are going to be very important areas to work together. While it could be a challenge also, it can complement the capabilities of the media and entertainment industry. This can give us a lot of leverage to export our content to other countries," Gupta added.

Vikram Sahay, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, in a special address at a session entitled, 'Under Scrutiny: Will OTT be Able to Get Over It?', said that OTT platforms have provided a huge opportunity for young artists, directors, actors, singers, musicians, and technicians to come up and present their skills to a larger audience.

Earlier, speaking at the inaugural of the Summit on Wednesday, K Madhavan, Chairman, CII National Committee on Media & Entertainment and Managing Director, Star India Pvt Limited & Disney India, said: "The industry disruption on this scale has never been imagined. However, the entire media and entertainment industry came together to engage and entertain millions of viewers. Television and video streaming increased to peak at 37% higher than the pre lockdown period and IPL was the biggest live cricketing tournament to be held during the pandemic. The tournament broke all previous records with a 23% increase in viewership over last year."

Madhavan added that the industry has the potential to grow to $100 billion by 2025. "The pandemic has driven customers to adopt technology. There has been never seen before growth in e-commerce, online video and digital gaming sectors. But to achieve this potential, we need light touch regulations and a much simpler governance structure in place," he said.